


Adapt or Die

by Daybreak



Category: Hanna (2011)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:31:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daybreak/pseuds/Daybreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her experiment in the real world was over as she knew it would have to be someday. It was time to become who she had been born to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adapt or Die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marginalia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginalia/gifts).



> Author's Note 1: Most of this came from my recipient’s prompts. Hers were exactly the prompts I’d hoped to have been given and this is the story the one I wanted to write since I watched the film. There is plenty of subtle femslash and lots of Rachel just for, recipient! And I built worlds! And had fun. Hope you enjoy. :-)  
> Author’s Note 2: Thanks to myxginxblossoms for the wonderful, thoughtful beta and Hanna-love. Thanks also to rose_griffes for cheerleading this story. Encyclopedic information and what I call in my head “Hanna-speak” is mostly from Wikipedia and various online dictionaries.  
> 

  


JOHANNA ZADECK

 _March 1994 – Berlin, Germany  
_

Johanna sat in the small waiting room. There were only a few other women there. She fought the urge to fidget and instead held her cold hands clasped tightly. To distract herself she picked up a brochure. The brochure was blue and white and had a bold caption:

Would you like another option? Talk to us today!

  
Another option, Johanna wondered. There were only two options when one fell pregnant. You either had a baby or you didn’t. You could decide whether to keep it or not, but there really were only two choices. She read the brochure. It described a program to make babies, stronger, faster and better than ordinary children.

“Do you have a light?” Jan’s face flashed before her eyes in her memory. He had been cute. She had been drunk. Keep your senses about you, Johanna, she told herself at this moment.

But she was intrigued as she read. The brochure said that she didn’t have to keep the baby.

  


“We will give you twenty-five thousand American dollars.” The man in the small clinic room was handsome, dark-haired, and very serious.

“So you’re buying my child.”

“You are doing us a privilege by bearing offspring that you originally didn’t intend to bring to term. We think this is fair compensation for your time and the changes to your body.” The words were practiced, even she could tell. But underneath the spiel was sincerity. Something real in his eyes.

“What if I change my mind in the middle?” She watched him frown at the question. Good. It was best that she know it all right now.

“Once the treatments are given the embryo will be irrevocably changed. You must be certain. There is no going back.” His eyes went even darker and Johanna stared back.

“No,” she said in a quieter voice. “I mean what if I change my mind about keeping the baby? Many mothers do. It’s why I was not going to have it.”

Heller’s face changed, surprised. And he smiled.

“You can always be a part of your child’s life if you choose.”

She smiled back. Probably naïve of her but she believed him.

“But I must be honest,” he continued. “These children will be special. Maybe more difficult to raise alone. We’re offering help.”

“Would you help?” The words were out before she could call them back. It sounded like flirting but it wasn’t only that. This one seemed to care. She needed to believe her baby would be all right.

“Of course. I’m with these children until the end. Whether you change your mind or not.”

  


 _October 1994 – Galinka, Poland_

Johanna stood at the door of the laboratory listening. Sometimes it was the only way to find things out. She stared at the immaculate white walls of the corridor as one of the technicians inside was speaking.

“You want to add _that_? He’s the one that cried for his mother twenty minutes into interrogation. We want them to be strong.”

“She’ll be strong enough.” That was Ms. Wiegler’s voice in her strange American accent. “She’ll have no fear, no panic. But I want that in. That will keep her from running rogue. She’ll feel aloof most of the time but she’ll always come back to people. We need her to do that.”

“Still want the Olympic sprinter?”

“Yes. Such a tragic car accident.” Johanna could hear sarcasm in Ms. Wiegler’s voice. She had wanted her baby to be stronger but this way? Who were these people really? She knocked.

There was the sound of stools being rolled and Ms. Wiegler came to the door.

“Johanna!” Ms. Wiegler smiled but it didn’t put Johanna at ease. “Come in.” The redheaded woman opened the door widely and the technician smiled as well. But Johanna didn’t really want to go in.

She stood her ground. “The doctor says he needs the sample for my next treatment.” Ms. Wiegler’s eyes dropped to Johanna’s belly, round and hard at eight months along. This time her joy, no not joy, Johanna amended to herself. Ms Wiegler’s almost _glee_ at the growing baby seemed genuine.

“Please come in,” she invited. “I’m sure Karl would love to see the baby on the ultrasound.”

Johanna hesitated and then walked through the door. After all, it was what she’d signed up for.

  


 _November 1996 - Gdansk, Poland_

They’d gotten away, Johanna thought, as she heard footsteps coming toward her. She’d given her daughter a chance two years ago and here was another chance. It was worth it. Worth the pain then and worth the pain now.

Then there was Wiegler. Not smiling, pointing the barrel down at her, while Johanna prayed Erik and Hanna were boarding that boat on the Baltic Sea. If she knew Erik at all they would be on that boat pulling anchor in moments.

“She will never be yours,” Johanna whispered.

  


RACHEL LYALL

 _May 1994 – London, England_

Hands trailed up, up, up. Louise knew exactly where to go, slipping easily into the moist, warm folds. Rachel leaned back moments later, panting.

“I’m still having it,” she said as she caught her breath. “Nothing against your sexual prowess.” She turned to face Louise.

“Ready to become so delightfully bourgeoisie? Is he worth it?” Louise barely spared her a look as she got up, naked, her thin form fit as ever as she searched in her purse.

“She’s worth it,” Rachel said, her hand protectively going to her still-flat belly.  
“So sure she’s a girl, eh?”

Rachel wasn’t sure of anything. Except maybe that her partying days were over. Louise found a cigarette and lit it.

“Excuse me? I’m pregnant?”

“The mite’s only an inch long. Maybe two. I’m not scarring her for life or anything.”

Rachel gave her a look and Louise sighed, taking two long drags on the cigarette before stubbing it out. Then she reached for her jeans on the floor and stepped into them. Next a black tank went over her head, covering her small breasts and abdomen. Rachel still thought she was beautiful. Short dark blonde hair, intense blue eyes. After nearly four years it was coming down to this. Rachel had thought she would always love her. And perhaps she always would.

“So you really can’t do this with me?”

“I’m nobody’s mother, darling,” Louise glanced at herself in the mirror. "Obviously.”

“I could—”

“Rachel. It’s not just that. It’s the life. It’s not my life. “

There was a silence. Rachel longed for a cigarette but refused to ask. If she was going to do this she may as well start it off right. She watched Louise begin to pack her clothes in her familiar red duffel bag. Except this wasn’t just one of their fights and Rachel couldn’t think of a way this time to get her to stay.

“Sebastian will love you until his last day, you know,” Louise said, packing one of Rachel’s favorite t-shirts into her bag.

“I know,” Rachel said, feeling vaguely like she might cry. The feeling was somewhere deep down inside and she struggled to repress it. Tears never worked with Louise and would only irritate her. “Of all the drunken parties, _he’s_ the one. Why couldn’t it have been Rakesh?”

“Sometimes our fates choose us. Sometimes we choose. This time it’s both.” Louise was fully packed and Rachel realized this really was it.

Louise turned and looked at her for a long moment. “Promise you’ll be happy, okay?”

“Delirious,” Rachel whispered, her voice catching on the words. She wasn’t ready for this. Not goodbye so soon. Louise put the bag down and came over to where Rachel lay, still naked in bed.

“Rachel,” she said in that voice of hers. The back of Louise’s hand trailed down Rachel’s damp cheek. Then she got up and went to the door.

“I . . . promise,” Rachel said louder, and Louise paused. Then the first love of Rachel’s life walked out the door.

  


 _December 2003 - London, England_

Her daughter amazed her every time she looked at her. Even though they were so different. Sophie was a complete person all her own. At eight years old, she seemed to know herself in a way Rachel didn’t even at age 43. She watched her on Santa’s lap at the department store.

“And for Christmas I want a pony, and a Santa Barbara Barbie, and a Play Station and . . .”

“Our daughter is the product of capitalism,” Sebastian said in an amused tone. “I think I just heard the last door shut on my youthful optimism. “

“That was the door shut on our bank account,” Rachel rejoined. The child was a tiny fortune but Rachel regretted nothing. Neither did Seb, which was one of the reasons she loved him.

Miles crawled over. “Up!” he said, holding his hands out. At eleven months, he was chubby and adorable. Always smiling. Rachel picked him up and perched him on her hip. Sophie was still telling Santa her list and Santa was beginning to look tired.

“She can still grow up to be an environmental science lawyer, right?”

Sebastian laughed. “I think you’d better groom Miles for saving planet Earth, Rach.”

  


 _May 2010 - Lille, France_

Rachel stood inhaling the country air. She had finally made it back after sixteen years. The tree was still there with its apple blossoms. The hills in the distance dotted with more homes but still the same. It was calming and amazing to be there after their most recent ordeal.

“This is it,” she said in a low voice. “The exact spot.”

“The exact spot where?” Sophie asked, glancing at the scenery while digging in her pocket for a piece of gum.

“Where you were conceived.” Rachel glanced at Sebastian who was fixing a flat tire and wished he was near.

“Gross!”

“What does conceive mean?” Miles asked. He took his mother’s hand as if he could sense that the place was important to her.

“It means it’s where she and dad had sex and where he knocked her up with me. Gross,” Sophie repeated, walking off. Rachel watched her laugh at something Seb said and hand him a thin, metal bar. Teenagers. Was it that she didn’t understand them or that she didn’t understand her particular teenager sometimes? It was hard to know.

“Is it where you conceived me too, Mummy?” Miles was tugging on her sleeve and he looked impossibly small when she looked down at him. So very young.

“No, darling,” she said, roughing his hair up. “That was much, much later.” Much later, she thought to herself, casting her eyes again to the green hills.

  


 _June 2012 – London, England_

Sebastian walked into the bedroom looking as if he’d seen a ghost. Rachel paused in the middle of brushing her short dark hair. She looked at him in the bureau mirror.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Sophie. And Hanna.” He sat down heavily on the bed. “I didn’t knock because I’m not used to knocking. They were kissing. Not the first time, apparently.”

Rachel continued to brush her hair. “So Sophie told you to get out and sod off?”

Sebastian just looked at her.

“Seb, she’s my daughter,” Rachel continued. “Surely you’re not surprised. Hanna looks at the girl like she wants to eat her up. Subtlety is not her strong point. Good for her. And good for Sophie.”

“Just because--”

“Just because I had relationships with women doesn’t mean our daughter has to? Come on, Seb. Don’t be so dreary and boring about this. We used to be so . . . interesting. Let the girls be.”

“I suppose. I just want Sophie to be careful. I don’t want her to be hurt.”

“Well, Hanna can’t get her pregnant if that’s what you’re worried about.” Rachel saw the stricken look on his face at her words and felt guilty. He didn’t deserve to be attacked. “I’m sorry. Hanna grew up in the forest. Sophie’s the first child she ever saw. She’d never let any harm come to her. I don’t know Hanna well but I know this.”

“Now, come,” she beckoned with a hand. “I can’t get all the tangles in the back. And I love when you brush my hair.”

Later, the girls came down to the kitchen for a snack while Rachel prepared a Shepherd’s pie. Sophie looked flushed and happy. Hanna was cool as always, but she was smiling. _Well done, Sophie,_ Rachel thought to herself, putting together ingredients while Sophie teased Miles. There was an abrupt silence and Rachel feared she’d said the words aloud. But Hanna simply asked for a raw egg. Sophie pulled a face and offered the other girl a banana but Hanna cracked the egg and sucked the contents down quickly as if she hadn’t heard. Sophie grabbed a banana and Hanna’s arm, muttering something about ‘brushing your teeth first’ as she tugged the blonde girl back to her room. Rachel held back a grin.

“Dinner is in thirty minutes!” she called to them.

She was strangely proud of Sophie and her attachment to Hanna and the other girl’s appearances and disappearances. Please be a lesbian, Rachel thought. The way she had once wished the girl would be good at mathematics.

Please be better at this than I was.

  


HANNA HELLER

 _October 2014 – Galinka, Poland_

It was cold, cold, cold. The town was small, if one could call the few buildings with lights flickering a town. But she’d found the facility, part of it by cab, part of it on foot in the snow. It had not been easy to climb the locked gate but she’d been determined. It had not been easy to find the address of the place where she’d been born. For a long time ‘The Galinka Project’ was all that she’d known about her origins.

She had needed to see it with her own eyes and now here she was. It was a compound of some kind. Not wholly unlike the underground bunker where they’d first captured her four years ago. Except where that had been in the middle of the Moroccan desert, this was hidden in the bitter cold, near a poor town. But she’d prepared and had on a snow parka, boots, even a torch for light in the chilly tunnels.

It felt vaguely familiar somehow, though she’d never climbed down into these tunnels quite like this before. Hanna closed the manhole cover and jumped lightly to the ground. There seemed to be miles of tunnels in the darkness. She listened but didn’t even hear much scurrying of rats. This place was long deserted. Abandoned. Remaining empty or unused or having been left for good. This place had definitely been left for good, she thought, as she began to make out doors on the sides of the tunnels. One on her right, and two coming up on her left. Hanna felt no fear at all, only an intense curiosity. She pressed the second door on the left and it opened easily.

She held the torch up and yes, it was a nursery. There were two old metal cribs against the wall. A faded mural of children holding hands was still painted on the wall. There was even a child’s old shoe on the floor. This was it, she thought. She wanted to sit down and absorb this place. This had been her home. This was where she came from.

She brought the torch closer to the back walls. She could make out handprints, very faded but prints made in paint with small hands. Hanna closed her eyes, imagining the glossy paint and a child’s joy at the colors. Was it her imagination or memory? Green, she thought, and sure enough when she opened her eyes below the set of green handprints, was her name printed still clear enough to read. H-a-n-n-a. But what about the rest? What about Eva, Henrik, the rest of these children? She placed her now-larger hand over her small old print. The wall was cold and unyielding.

Hanna left the nursery and found the children’s dormitory. There wasn’t much furniture left save a long wooden table. She brought the torch to it and a true memory hit—candles, children sitting at the table singing, a checked pinafore that chafed at her neck. She gasped and quickly left the room. Memories could overwhelm you, she thought, as she walked down another corridor. She wanted answers. Why? Why had they been created?

She found the laboratory, but no written records. No files, no names. Everything had probably been removed or destroyed save those fading names on the nursery wall. As much as she wanted to know more about her life here, little evidence remained as answers. It also felt like disturbing the peace, the children’s and their mothers’ graves to be here. Even when she knew that the underground bunkers were not where they had been buried.

  


 _November 2024 – Colorado, United States_

Hanna pushed back unbidden memories of Galinka and dropped the postcard in the mailbox before returning to where she’d parked her Jeep. Not here, she thought. Not now. She had a full day ahead of her. She then got on the road to her favorite mountain. The air was crisp and sharp, though not nearly as cold as her Finland home had been.

Skiing, she thought later that afternoon as she zipped downhill with her hair flipping in the wind behind her, resisting the urge to shriek in excitement. She loved moments like this, darting through the trees, using her knees as she’d been taught. I was designed for things like _this_ , she reasoned. No, you were designed to _kill_ , another voice said. That voice sounded like her father Erik, but without his kindness. Why was it hard to remember sometimes that he had been kind?

She trudged to her remote cabin later that evening, which was quiet, spare, and without modern conveniences except the indoor toilet, small hot plate, and electricity.

Was she a born assassin? Assassin. A murderer, generally professional. Especially one who murders a prominent figure. Well, then yes, she had been that. But didn’t she have the heart for it. It had been a brief and lucrative four years, but she was glad she’d retired. Bored sometimes, but glad. She turned on a small lamp and considered gathering wood for a fire. It didn’t feel cold to her now that she was inside and why waste time on a fire anyway? Instead, she unpacked her few groceries and placed a few other items on the table. One was her mother’s photograph. She was beginning to look more like Johanna at her age.

 _Sophie’s voice in her ear when they were eighteen and it was all still new. “You’re beautiful, Hanna” she’d whispered._

Hanna shook off that memory, too, and set her mind to frying steak the way she liked it, barely done. Frying pans. Meat tasted better over a fire and she so she reconsidered and quickly built small fire. She only had a couple of dry logs to get it started, but that would be fine for a few hours. She put a few of the remaining pieces meat on metal skewers in the fire. The aroma soon filled the air, smoky and rich.

Hanna did have a cell phone and several passports. If I’m a born assassin then why did I give it up? The thought continued to peck at her. She had been discreet and successful. Several governments had contacted her for her services. She tried to clear her mind from thoughts of her former occupation and focus instead on eating the steak, the meat crispy and juicy in her hands. But something about the cabin, maybe its quiet and isolation made memories come back more clearly to her.

Marissa Wiegler’s fall sprawling her out at that awkward angle, damp red hair clinging to her pale face. Rachel calling her to dinner one Christmas. Erik allowing her to hug him in the cabin that last time. Or what had been hugging for them.

 _“I imagine she hears me sing . . .”_ That was her mother’s voice from tapes destroyed by Hanna herself fourteen years ago. But not before Hanna had gone back to listen to them.

Hanna pressed play on the CD player and music filled the room. She smiled, as the sound drowned out those memories to let others in.

  


 _2018 – London, England_

“Did I frighten you?”

Hanna’s voice was quiet in the dark room. The young man was thin with dark hair. Unlike her first man, this one resembled Erik. She sighed. She was sure that psychologists would have a lot more to print out about her now that she was older. If they’d ever got the chance.

“A little,” he admitted and she liked him for that. Honest, at least. He took another swig of beer. He offered some to Hanna and she wrinkled her nose. Instead she pulled her shirt over her head and walked to where he sat on the edge of the bed, wedging her long, bare legs between his knees. She heard him sigh and the sound of the can being placed on the nightstand.

He leaned his head into her abdomen, inhaling. She placed her hands on his shoulders, feeling the knobs and bones of his right shoulder.

“I could break your shoulder in two places,” she whispered, squeezing her hand tighter, until she heard him bite back a small wince. “You would never use this arm properly again.” Her tone held no emotion. He was only one of others like this for her.

His head snapped up, eyes wide. Geoffrey was sobering up quickly.

“You should be frightened. If you ever hurt her I’ll break both your arms.”

Her eyes were steady and she knew they were probably translucent as glass, with not even the remote hint of teasing in them. Then she released him and walked to the bathroom.

  


 _2024 – Colorado, United States_

Memories were indeed stronger here, Hanna thought as the music continued to play. Sophie’s son Henry had been up to Hannah’s shoulder when she’d visited in January. At nine years old, he resembled a taller Miles more than Geoffrey. But with a mean streak. He had stayed away from Hanna demonstrating that the boy at least had some instinct for self-preservation. When I was nine I could skin a hare in the late evening light, she remembered thinking as she had looked at him. Children were so soft here. But then so had Sophie been. At least she had been once.

 _  
_

 _2012 – London, England_

 _“Why are you leaving me?” Sophie’s face was streaked with tears when Hanna glanced up. She looked lovely._

 _“Because you never keep your promises,” Hanna muttered. She looked around the small apartment. It had been their home. But foolish of her to believe in it. She didn’t belong there. She doubted she belonged anywhere._

 _“He’s just a boy . . .” Sophie sat closer. Hanna folded her few things. She didn’t have much to pack. Everything was mostly Sophie’s anyway. It was Sophie who had made this feel like something real for six months, as she had at the Lyalls six the months before that. But she couldn’t tolerate lies. Not in the ones she loved. Not since Erik._

 _“Wasn’t last night . . . nice?” Sophie’s voice took on another tone._

 _“You know that I prefer homosexual intercourse to heterosexual. Though I like them both. But I don’t know how to . . .” She paused and looked at Sophie. “Lie as well as you do.”_

 _“You were trained to lie.”_

 _“But not about loving someone.”_

 _“But I do—”_

 _“It’s never been safe for you to be with me, Sophie,” Hanna said without looking at the other young woman. She wished these were lies but they weren’t and needed to be said. “If I can’t trust you then I really can’t trust anyone else. It’s better this way.”_

 _Sophie was quiet. Hanna slung her backpack over her shoulder and squared them. She knew Sophie would go for the attack and Hanna readied herself for it. In a way this too was a battle, but she was just learning this sort of combat. She stood, not moving._

 _“You’ll regret this,” Sophie began with venom, probably not realizing that she looked like the saddest, prettiest girl in the world. Olive skin, tears shining like bright jewels on her skin. Like a heroine out of Hanna’s fairytale books. But fairy tales weren’t real. Hanna just looked at her a long while and then walked out the door._

 _“Bitch! Cunt!” Sophie screamed. “You never really loved me!” She called down the stairs. “You can’t love anything. You can’t_ feel _anything, that’s why . . . why . . .” Sophie was choking on sobs now in between calling out Hanna’s name. Hanna bit her tongue until there was blood. Dulling one pain with another. It was what she had been taught. Why weren’t the interfering sequences and her complicated DNA working for her now? But perhaps it was, as Hanna found she was nowhere near tears and able to put Sophie far away in her mind as she walked slowly down the stairs._

 _Sophie was right about one thing. Hanna already regretted leaving but did it anyway. Like she had once flipped a switch long ago. Her experiment in the real world was over as she knew it would have to be someday. It was time to become who she had been born to be._

  


 _November 2024 – Colorado, United States_

As the music played, Hanna couldn’t help but remember the nursery where she had been born and had spent most of her first two years. Not as she’d seen it in Poland ten years ago, fading and decrepit, but as it had been when she was little, the murals freshly painted. She could almost hear the children now, laughing and singing. She shut the CD off abruptly. Those memories always led to others.

Her mother and Erik had become involved, they must have been. She remembered always having called him Papa, him always being there. Her mother had loved him and Hanna. From what Hanna had gathered, they had been out for a day trip when the other children had been slaughtered right there in the facility. There were no reports about this because these children, even Hanna herself, had never officially existed. Galinka locals had pointed her to a cemetery and talked about the measles epidemic in 1996 that killed 19 children. Hanna had dug one grave in the cold snow and had found the tiny remains herself. There were supposed to have been twenty, she thought.

She could hear them singing again, vaguely in the back of her head even without the CD playing. “Happy Birthday to You.” In English. Maybe this was why Papa kept music from me, she thought. He didn’t want me to remember.  
She went to the paper bag she’d set on the counter the day earlier that afternoon and brought out the small cake.  
Happy Birthday to me, she thought, using her finger to draw up the white frosting. She tasted it. Sweet. She was not used to such sweets, even now, but it made the memory stronger. She could remember so much now.  
The children singing, the smell of her mother's hair, and how soft it was in her fingers as they rushed from the dormitory that last night.

  


 _1996 – Galinka, Poland_

 _“We have to go--now.”  
_

 _Papa seemed angry. He wasn’t often angry.  
_

 _“What about the others?” That was Mama. She’d stopped singing.  
_

 _“Dead.”  
_

 _Hanna knew that word. It was bad. It meant no longer alive.  
_

 _“And the children?” Papa said nothing but Mama was hurrying now too.  
_

 _They were going to a car. Hanna liked cars._

  


 _ ___

 _November 2024 – Colorado, United States_

Birthdays are celebrated in numerous cultures, often with a gift, party or rite of passage.

Hanna sat at the table. The fire was burning low, all the steak eaten. There were only embers now and she had no more wood to stoke it with, unless she went out and gathered some. On the table was the small white cake with the stripe from her finger, two photographs, and her handgun in pieces. She had decided to clean it, oiling it with a little brush and cloth as Erik had first taught her. A revolver. Erik had taught her how to use automatic weapons as well but she preferred this. It was a soothing ritual and she respected guns the way she had respected the animals whose lives she used to take for her own survival. What a different killing that had been.

She made long, slow strokes of the cloth on the gun warming in her hand. She began to put it together quickly as she catalogued facts in her head the way she had used to do out loud. Samuel Colt had not invented the first revolver, as most people thought. He was the first to _patent_ it in 1835– Her mobile phone buzzed in the other room, loud in the stillness. She ignored it. No more jobs, she thought. No more bloody hands or pleading eyes. The phone rang a few times more and then stopped. Maybe it was Sophie, Hanna thought belatedly. But Sophie would get the postcard. It was enough.

The gun together now, she loaded it, twirled the chamber, and closed it. It was now ready for whatever she would ask of it. It had served her well and would serve her again. She had to be careful. This time she’d only get one chance and her aim would have to be perfect. Target. Think of it as your target. You want it to happen quickly. She was reviewing the aorta versus the cerebellum in her mind when the phone rang again. She went to the other room to answer it, feeling slightly annoyed. I haven’t even had a piece of my cake yet, she thought.

She looked at the name. Sophie. It rang once more and she pressed the button marked TALK.

“Hanna?”

It was Rachel’s voice and that was another surprise.

“I used Sophie’s phone because I thought you wouldn’t answer if you knew it was me.” Hanna was silent. She honestly didn’t know how to respond. Rachel had never phoned her before and Hanna probably wouldn’t have answered.

“I’m just calling to . . .” Rachel’s voice sounded nervous, but warm.

“To wish you a happy birthday, Hanna. Happy Birthday.” It sounded as if Rachel were smiling. Hanna could see her in her mind’s eye. Rachel, still quite handsome with her gray hair, her smile as kind as ever.

“Rachel.” She could hear the children singing again and she sat back down at the table. She picked up the photo of her mother, worn yellow and crinkled with age.

“You know I don’t celebrate my birthday,” Hanna continued, her voice was breathy and low. She hadn’t spoken to anyone all day.

In most legal systems, one becomes a legal adult on a particular birthday, often the fourteenth through twenty-first, and reaching age-specific milestones confers particular rights and responsibilities, another part of her brain droned in its familiar tone. This was her voice. She could shut it off but didn’t want to. It was soothing. She wasn’t often nervous or upset, but the recitations did calm her and help her use the part of her brain that knew she could count on.

“I know,” Rachel was saying in her ear. “But I wanted to send you well wishes anyway.”

There was another long silence. Hanna’s picked up the gun. Perhaps now with Rachel over the phone. Comforting for her. Cruel for Rachel, though.

Hanna spun the chamber of the revolver open again and then closed it. Still fully loaded. Cerebellum was certain death, but that would be toward my throat. Frontal lobe, then, though at this range it didn’t make much--

“You know you could come home if you wanted,” Rachel said, interrupting her thoughts.

Hanna was startled into putting the phone down for a moment. Home? Did crashing at the Lyall's house for several months at a time and shagging Sophie when they were young make the Lyalls’ house _home_? It had been more than just that with Sophie and you know it, she thought as the faint sound of toddlers singing finally faded. That voice was angry and Hanna forced herself to remember Sophie as she’d first met her, tan and glossy standing with a small Miles in the bright sun. She remembered the Lyalls singing as she hid in a hot van. Miles keeping her secret.

 _Her father’s voice. “Laika, a mongrel dog from the streets of Moscow, was the first animal to orbit the Earth. She was launched into outer space on the third of November, 1957.”_

“Hanna, are you still there?” Rachel’s voice came from the small phone still, almost plaintive. Why? Why was Hanna important to her? Orphaned, too-smart, abnormal child. Why had Rachel cared? Why had any of them cared?

 _“Scientists believed humans would be unable to survive conditions of outer space, so flights by animals were viewed as an experimental precursor to human missions. Her rocket was not designed to be retrievable, and Laika had always been intended to die._ ”

“We miss you.” There was an edge of defeat and an infinite sadness in Rachel’s voice now.

 _“But she didn’t die, did she?” Her own voice. Young, hopeful._

 _“They couldn’t bring the rocket back, remember?” Papa’s voice was gentle but inevitable._

 _“I remember, but sometimes I wish you would read it differently.” She’d been sad, but accepting._

Rachel did care even if Hanna didn’t understand why. She sighed. Tears slid from her lashes onto her lap. They hadn’t bred out tears.

“We miss you very much,” the warm voice on the other end continued. Not hanging up. Trying. Always trying.

 _Differently._ She maybe didn’t have to be the supernova that burned so brightly that it burned itself out? Maybe there still could be a place for her?

Hanna put down the gun and picked up the other photograph under her mother’s. The one with her and the Lyalls on some long ago Christmas Eve. She was smiling in the photo and looked happy. Perhaps she had been. She wiped away another tear before it fell on to the photo. Tears were drops of clear saline fluid secreted by the lacrimal gland and diffused between the eye and eyelids to moisten the parts and facilitate their motion. Also shed in times of sadness, she amended.

“I miss you too,” Hanna said finally, her voice breaking. “I miss all of you too.”

  


 _Nova means "new" in Latin, referring to what appears to be a very bright new star shining in the celestial sphere. The word supernova was coined by Swiss astrophysicist and astronomer Fritz Zwick. Several types of supernovae exist. Types I and II can be triggered in one of two ways, either turning off or suddenly turning on the production of energy through nuclear fusion. Although no supernova has been observed since 1604, supernovae remnants indicate on average the event occurs about once every 50 years in the Milky Way._

 _Furthermore, the expanding shock waves from supernova explosions can trigger the formation of new stars._


End file.
